


you cannot kill me in a way that matters

by frozenspraycans



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25784149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenspraycans/pseuds/frozenspraycans
Summary: or: lin bei fong throughout the ages
Relationships: Lin Beifong/Tenzin
Kudos: 41





	you cannot kill me in a way that matters

She was eight years old when she realised her family wasn’t like others.

She was eight and young and when her parents didn’t show up to normal school events like graduations and report card days but she merely shrugged – Lin was a model student, parental supervision wasn’t required for model students. She was at the top of her class for every single subject, and her earth-bending skills were excellent – prodigal, even. Nothing to be compared to, but also nothing less expected from the first-born of the legendary Chief of Police, metal-bending extraordinaire – Toph Bei Fong.

It was a weird phenomenon. Her mother seemed to be everywhere yet nowhere at all. Her name was always brought up in conversations, in classes, in gossip circles and crime slums and legal documents and government propaganda. Yet, Toph herself was never in the kitchen or in the living room or the bedroom or the attic. Toph was never home – Lin was eight, the only home she knew was the four walls and the two-bedroom apartment. Her mother was just never there.

Her biological father – she had one, she supposed – was never in the picture. Lin didn’t feel the loss of a fatherly figure, though – it would have made no difference. His presence would be outshone and invalidated – not by only a Bei Fong, but _Toph_ Bei Fong – anyway. 

Most days she tagged along with Tenzin, usually stood between two loving parents who were always, always there. Excruciatingly actually, to the point she felt the attention was overbearingly suffocating and a little off. (She realised much later that there was a reason why Tenzin was flocked over more often than the rest of his siblings, but Lin was not a master of emotional coddling, and that was a package she felt Tenzin needed to unpack himself), but she was young and so was he and scraped knees were much more of a problem than deep-rooted family issues.

“I’m sure your mother would show up next year,” Tenzin grinned at her. They were standing outside the performance hall, sneaking out of the principal’s mundane speeches to close the academic year. 

Lin only smiled out of acknowledgement. She wouldn’t, of course, because her mother was busy building Republic City and breaking down crime syndicates and was out of the house first thing in the morning and the last person to come back at night. Sometimes she disappeared for weeks on end, only learning that she was off to accompany Avatar Aang on civil duties and council meetings when Tenzin made an off-hand comment about it. 

But besides the dramatic elaborations – Lin was fine. She grew up with this chip on her shoulder, there wasn’t much she could do about it. Plus, she had big sister duties and academics to focus on. It wasn’t like Toph particularly scrutinised her to forge a similarly iconic destiny with her own bare hands, or to carry on the Bei Fong legacy. Toph didn’t worry about titles or fame or carrying on the family name. (Yet somehow, it felt like the only way Toph was going to acknowledge her as a daughter. The lack of explicit conversational assurance made it worse.) 

Tenzin always mentioned how not having parents around meant siblings counted on each other even more, recalling the adventures of his mother Katara and her brother Sokka – so that was bound to happen, no? And she didn’t need to feel stupidly lonely and fate-less anymore –

* * *

She was seventeen years old when she realised Suyin went out even more than her mother.

Heck, it would be her lucky week if she saw Suyin outside of school hours. Obviously half-dressed, ready for the shenanigans that awaited her outside (and there were a loud bunch of them, hollering at the main doorway.) 

She was everything Lin wasn’t – loud, extroverted, sociable – she made friends with everyone that she had a five-minute conversation with. This sparked some tension in the air in the time when they did pass each other, Lin seeing how her companions weren’t exactly the best influence. Most of them were dropouts that spent most of their time spending unearned money while loitering around Republic City’s red-light districts. Was it so wrong that she didn’t want her sister to be associated with people like that?

“You’re not Mum, Lin!” Suyin retorted back after Lin voiced out her concerns, in the intervals of returning home to change outfits. That was what the home was for Suyin – another closet, another roof.

“It’s exactly that I’m not mum that I’m telling you – you shouldn’t be hanging out with those people!” Lin said, exasperated, the fiery anger still present. 

Lin was old enough by then to realise how detrimental Toph’s absence as a parental figure had been to Suyin. It was the burden of being the literal middle figure in their loose thread of a family. She was constantly trying to chase after her mother, and Suyin, trying to make a stable environment where they could be a happy family, just like–

“You’re just jealous, aren’t you?” Suyin spat. “You were never as popular as me at my age, because all you did was study like the outcast you are,” 

Hurt shot through Lin as her heart lurched up her throat. 

“Leave,” she managed out.

“I was going to, anyway,” Suyin scoffed, turning a heel and walking out.

But it wasn’t like Lin had all the time in the world. Instead of trying to manifest a magical destiny and healthy family dynamics with her own hands, she stood her ground and discussed her plans of being a police officer to her guidance counsellor. Honestly, it was something that was ingrained with her – awoke from its dormant state when she realised she did, in fact, want her mother’s acknowledgment and blessing and more than a morning greeting if she did catch her leaving the house for another six to twelve (hours or weeks, she wouldn’t know). She came from a family of civil servants. If she couldn’t create a narrative better than being the Avatar’s earth-bending master, it was only fit for her to follow suit.

That or so maybe, she could finally create a Venn diagram of experiences between her and her mother. Toph Bei Fong went on timeless tales since she was twelve – what did Lin offer? What could she carve out for her own identity? Maybe heading towards a similar profession would fill the empty space between them over dinner tables, where they would usually sit in silence on special occasions when they actually shared a meal together. (Suyin was never in this picture.)

Lin couldn’t stay out late with her only friend because his family made a point to eat dinner together every night. It was hard to hang out with Tenzin after daylight hours anyway, considering he had to travel back to Air Temple Island, a river stretched between them with only a ship that docked every few hours. Toph made a point of not exploiting her connections with Aang and got an apartment smack dab in the middle of Republic City. She still could not answer the conundrum of whether the surrounding noise made her feel accompanied or much, much, lonelier.

“Why do you live all the way on another island?” Lin asked Tenzin once. They stayed behind the school gym, practicing for a friendly tournament with a rival school next door.

Tenzin shrugged. “Not sure. Maybe Dad just wanted us to be safe. He always talked about how we were the last of our kind.”

Something tore through Lin. Something between jealousy of Tenzin not having to go through an identity crisis, of having his legacy as the Avatar’s sole air-bender son solidifying the reason for his existence. Envy, that _of course_ a parent would want to protect their family no matter what – and how awfully nice it would be shown so. Conflicting anger at herself for having these feelings – how awful of her to make this about herself, the air-benders suffered from a genocidal damage that Tenzin’s family still hadn’t recovered from – and sadness. 

Just shameful, self-pitiful sadness for being herself.

“Hey, you’re overthinking again,” Tenzin nudged Lin’s shoulder playfully. “Stop thinking. We can’t both have sticks up our asses.”

Lin scoffed, and shoved him back. She was always the sturdier one in nature, and accidentally pushed Tenzin out of his seat. Tenzin recovered quickly, forming an airball behind him, but the momentum wasn’t calculated and when Tenzin lurched forward his lips accidentally grazed against Lin’s cheek.

They didn’t even freeze in surprise, immediately laughing it off. Their parents’ humour certainly passed onto them well. 

* * *

She was twenty-three when she realised she was in love with Tenzin. 

Of course it was Tenzin – he was with her all this time. Childhood friends to lovers – that was what the old tales always sold to them. She had read every best-known romance novel – Tenzin teased her about being a sap, and Lin retorted back about how Tenzin surely wasn’t going to beat her at literature class with that attitude – and Tenzin mentioned how everyone in Avatar Aang’s circle married their childhood friends. 

Well, everyone except Toph. But she knew better than to ask why. (Later, she realised she probably should _have_ asked why. Why was that specific curse carried down from the past generation? Why carried down onto _her_? Everything she inherited was weaker, or a straight up tragedy in a gene.)

At first it was a dream. After hearing Suyin boast about all her ever-happening love life, she could finally contribute something to the conversation. Of course, she never spared any details, in fear that Suyin would be a bastard and spread the news to all the juniors she was friends with – but the look on Suyin’s face when Tenzin came to pick her up on a date, dressed nicer than usual, was so, so worth it. Toph merely shrugged it off with a wave of a hand.

But she was too much – too much, always. Too harsh. Too brash. Too brute. The steel of nerves allowed her to graduate on top of the police academy, but it was also enough for her to graduate out of Tenzin’s patience as a lover. She thought she did everything right. Voiced out their problems when they faced one. Stood her ground as a counterpart. She fought everything with her fists and she was tough and angry and ready to conquer any injustice. And then she was just too much and filled too much space and now she was spilling off the edge and Tenzin had his hands in front of him and suddenly they were eight and in the playground again, Lin throwing a tantrum over the other kids cheating in a game, Tenzin calming her down. But this time the other kids weren’t there.

She said what she wanted and had both feet planted to the ground. 

Childhood friends to lovers, that was the end to this whole ordeal. That was what they were promised.

“I’m not a trophy boyfriend,” Tenzin scowled at her. “You don’t get to talk to me as if I am!”

“When have I ever called you a trophy?” Lin scowled back at him, her fists clenched, nails on her palms hard enough to draw blood.

What were they arguing about again? What led them here?

“You’ve always voiced about your insecurities of never being able to surpass your mother. I don’t want to be part of that,”

“What did you say?” Lin was furious. How dare he used her insecurities, passed over a whisper in the public library, against her? How dare he clutched her arm and forced salt down on her wound? “You’re my friend, why would you say that?”

_How dare you assume that I was only using you to show off to my mother? As if she would care that I was dating the last airbender, now that Avatar Aang’s gone?_

“Then why haven’t you made any other friends?”

“Because you were enough for me!”

“No, it was because you only ever used others for yourself, Lin. You never cared about other people. Only yourself.”

_You’re wrong you’re wrong you’re wrong_ , Lin wanted to scream. Sure, she cared about what her mother thought of her, but she would never water down their entire friendship as a twisted form of success, like her diplomas and badges shoved into a dark corner of her closet. (She wanted to show them to her sole guardian, but there was just never the right time, and she had long since gave up trying to win her dear mother’s approval through academic achievements.) She just felt comfortable with Tenzin and Tenzin alone. She didn’t think she needed anyone else. She had Tenzin. And now he was a fingertip away from her grasp.

Tenzin only looked sad in response, almost sorry. 

That was what set Lin off – the pity, the sympathy, something she clearly told Tenzin she would rather _die_ than ever receive from him – before she earth-bended the hell out of the air temple, the ground cracking beneath their feet.

On the bright side, as she saw the metal electrical wires bent down to the ground, almost a courtesy, almost enough. She could definitely metal-bend.

Every step she took home seemed to remind her another reason why she could not be with Tenzin.

He definitely wanted children.

She was definitely not going to do just that. Although Tenzin never explicitly said so, she already knew when he went on and on about wanting his own family – less of personal preference, and more of it being a pinnacle of his duty as one of the only air-benders left in the world. 

Her initiation ceremony was tomorrow. She was going to enter a world of duty, of clocking in ungodly hours and dangerous expeditions.

She couldn’t be a mother. Not now, not ever. Especially not after Toph showcased a piss poor job of doing just so.

She was never meant to be with Tenzin – didn’t deserve to, wasn’t enough, always lacking in some ways or another – and it hurt. She knew in hindsight, when this whole ordeal was over, Tenzin would accept her just the way she was – as an acquaintance, maybe a tolerable work partner with a similar goal of protecting the city that their parents worked so hard to build, but not a lover.

* * *

The silence that followed throughout her policing career, just like the scars on the side of her face, did not bother her one bit. She didn’t think about how Suyin had left for good, miles outside of Republic City, probably never to be seen again, the sound of documents ripping, and her mother – Chief of Police, Toph _fucking_ Bei Fong – not being as noble and incorruptible as everyone thought she was. 

The moment the first tear rang around the room and she shouted about how much effort that report took, a striking clarification landed on her mind. 

Her mother never cared about her, or her ambition, or her dreams or her career. She could be reincarnated to be an Avatar herself, and her mother wouldn’t even blink an eye. And now, seeing how she had torn up the report, not for any of their sake, but for herself –

So much for spending an abhorrent amount of time and energy trying to live up to her mother’s legacy, seeking for her approval, only to find out she wasn’t that great after all.

The bigger fire burnt out.

She was all alone, now.

* * *

Lin was fifty when she met face to face with the new Avatar. She was from the Southern Water Tribe and feisty and everything that she was, with slightly more optimism in her eyes than her own. She saw how she flew fearlessly up the sky to capture Amon and how out of reach she was. No matter how fast or angry or stubborn she was – it was another reminder how Lin was never enough, and never will be enough.

These were the series of unfortunate events that led up to her, solo, up on top of a metal plane. She had nothing left but her bare fists, a body made of steel, and the last of the air-benders fleeing right behind her.

The words she shouted to Tenzin – they were meant to be dramatics – Tenzin always told her how everything she said sounded like something belonging to an action adventure drama. How she brood too much, how she was too introspective and yet not enough to form coherently sound feelings. She didn’t register what were destined to be her last words, something along the lines of a sacrifice, because there was the Avatar and the air-benders and people who were way faster and better and stronger and more deserving than her. She was one in a million of an earth-bender. It was not rocket science. She was just old and tired and wanted it all to end.

When the explosion rang her ears, she opened her eyes.

She was not on Amon’s plane, which was weird. Because she swore she was–

“Lin!”

She couldn’t immediately make out the distorted voice. Which was a massive sore point considering this was her afterlife advertisement break and she should recognise the first person on call.

She turned around. Maybe it was her mother, who she hasn’t seen for years. She was pretty sure she was still alive. Her mother might as well have been immortal – while the number of times they had a proper conversation could be counted on one hand, it still took up every inch of her mind.

But it was an eight-year-old Tenzin.

He took her hands, which was of a similar size.

They were in a field of flowers, one overlooking the sky. Not the Air Temple, nor the Earth Kingdom. Everything felt alright. She didn’t feel like she was suffocating, for once. 

Maybe this was her second chance. Maybe she could do this again. She could put more effort in her relationship with mother and Suyin and Tenzin, and maybe she wasn’t meant to pursue a policing career. Maybe she was supposed to be a farmer in the Fire Nation, or something. She knew Fire Lord Zuko the least in terms of her mother’s social circle, but it was worth a shot to get away from everything.

“You have to wake up.” Tenzin smiled once again, sadly at her.

“But,” she clutched his hands, unsteady, unready. “What if I don’t want to? Don’t I get a say in it? Plus, you’re not real.” _You’re not you’re not you’re not because you’re on a flying bison with your loving family and your wife Pema who managed to rebuild the air-bender population and whom you lived happily ever after with and I sacrificed myself just so I could protect you. You’re not real and I won’t allow it._

“Oh, Lin,” Tenzin started, but his voice was starting to fade. “You don’t have to always rely on yourself for everything. The Avatar has found you – just continue guiding her, and you’ll be fine.”

This was not Tenzin speaking. The real Tenzin had not properly spoken to her for years.

“Sure, I guess,” Lin allowed a breath of relief to escape her. She felt so tired. She was never a big fan of all the spiritual talk surrounding bending abilities. It was already wearing her out. 

“You’ll find peace soon. You always do. Nothing is over yet.” Tenzin-not-Tenzin was speaking. It was only when everything was slowly distorting out of place when she realised who it was.

* * *

When she woke up with Amon’s thumb was on her forehead and despite all the performative initial thrashing, she wasn’t sure whether having her earth-bending abilities taken away was the worst thing ever, considering it was something she didn’t realise she had to cherish in the first place. Maybe in the midst of this chaos, of having this gifted ability removed – she was taking her first step to find herself again.

Whatever comes next, she would be fine.

She closed her eyes.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
